Who loves pancakes! Mmmm. My favorite butter vehicle. But indulging in a pile of them used to leave me with a lump in my stomach for the rest of the morning. Then along came this simple, gluten free recipe that my whole family liked, and now we enjoy them at least once a week.

Plus, they’re high protein!

This is a breakfast solution (like my high protein chocolate muffins!) that’s gluten free, nutrient dense, and super simple to make. It lets you start your day with what feels like an indulgent treat that doesn’t give you a blood sugar dive within an hour.

And the best part? You can make it in the blender, so there’s fewer dishes.

I got 5 kids, people. I know how crazy life can get. So let’s streamline pancake breakfast, shall we?

This recipe will have ingredients you’ve not met in pancakes before. Trust me. Each part works together and you’ll be amazed at the result.

Turn on the blender and mix on high until the oats have been ground up and the batter is smooth.

Heat your pans to medium. Pour batter into greased pans and flip when bubbles have formed and popped all the way to the center of the pancake.

Serve with butter and syrup of your choice. Leftovers are great spread with peanut butter!

This recipe is based loosely off of the pancakes in the Trim Healthy Mama cookbook–but I tweaked them to make them a cross over, since that’s what my family thrives on. This makes pancakes so easy, we can do them on Sunday mornings, making it possible to have a ‘special’ breakfast for the weekends, despite the flurry of getting ready for church.

We fry ours on our griddle with a bit of bacon grease. Blueberries sprinkled on top make it extra special…

You would not believe how satisfying these pancakes are, while also having the perfect texture profile for a pancake: crisp on the edges, fluffy yet moist in the middle. Try them this week and tell me what you think!

This month I made a crazy vow: I disowned all my other grocery sources to give my undivided loyalty to my humble little Aldi store. Their prices are better and I can shop so much faster in that store!

But can a real foodie really get everything her heart desires at her local Aldi?

Why, yes, yes she can.

They may not have that fancy, fermented condiment brand you’ll find at your uptown healthy grocery, but they have the ingredients for it! And that’s the secret to eating healthy on a budget–make your own super foods with humble ingredients!

(If you don’t have an Aldi near by, just replace with your favorite discount grocery source. You don’t have to shop at fancy stores to get the good stuff.)

3 Super Foods you can make yourself from humble groceries

1. Yogurt

Yogurt is a staple of mommies and toddlers alike. But you pay an arm and a leg for good quality, naturally sweetened yogurt at any store, and that’s IF you can find a brand you trust. But you can make it yourself for a fraction of the cost.

How this saves you money:

A quart of good quality yogurt is $5 right now at my Wal-Mart. A gallon of local, grass fed, raw milk costs me the same amount. If I turn that $5 gallon of milk into a gallon of yogurt, I’m saving $15!

You can even make fun little yogurt cups for outings, with your thick, creamy homemade yogurt and some granola! Think how much money you could save if you skipped buying those individual yogurt cups!!!

All you need is a jug of milk and some plain yogurt for starter. Here’s my simple system for making homemade yogurt (without special equipment!)

2. Sauerkraut

No, I don’t mean the canned kind your grandma served with sausages. (I’m assuming you had a German grandma, my condolences if you did not.) I mean the raw, fermented type that’s chock full of probiotics and good bacteria and hundreds of times more bioavailable vitamin C than a simple serving of cabbage. It can turn a simple meal into a gourmet repast, with way more nutrition!

Look how I glorified this picnic food with a sprinkle of kraut! (That just might be homemade kombucha jello, too, but that’s a subject for another post!)

There are store bought brands of traditional, raw sauerkraut that promise all the fermented goodness, but it’s so much cheaper–and downright fun! to make it yourself.

my buddy, Braden, mixing up a batch of kraut for his family–they can eat a quart a week of this stuff–I’ve never seen anybody who loved kraut so much!

How this saves you money:

1.5 pint jar of raw sauerkraut can cost $14. A single cabbage costs no more than $3 and can make 2 jars of sauerkraut, so you can easily save $25 making it yourself!

3. Kombucha

Oh, bubbly goodness that keeps my husband from drinking toxic sodas! I’m so glad I don’t have to pay $4.00 a bottle for you from the health food section of the uppity grocery store!

Kombucha is a fermented drink that can support digestion and the immune system, as well as encourage gentle detox. I first started drinking it during a season when my liver was in really bad shape. I’m so thankful that making the simple habit of eating or drinking fermented foods daily has helped me never go back to that toxic state I was in 10 years ago!

I make my own kombucha with a starter I got from a friend and simple ingredients I can get at Aldi or Wal-Mart: black tea, sugar, and juice.

How this saves you money:

Storebought kombucha costs anywhere from $4 to $10 a bottle, depending on where you live. For this example, we’ll say you found it for $4. My family drinks an average of 2 bottles a day–more in the summer time. That means this health habit would cost us $250 a month if we were buying it!!! It costs under $0.20 to make it at home. That’s $12/month in ingredients, a savings of $238!

I believe kombucha is the gateway fermented food, because it’s sweet and yummy and fizzy and portable and sippable and–did I mention yummy? If you’re just getting started with adding probiotic rich foods and drinks to your diet, Kombucha is the place to start.

And, yes, I teach people to make kombucha, too–with videos of each step and amazing flavor formulas. My ecourse, Kombucha Made Easy, walks you through step by step–we have limited space for our next class–get on the waiting list now!

What fermented foods have you tried? Do you buy them or make them yourself?

Is your kitchen working for you, or do you feel like you’re entering a battleground when it’s time to make a meal?

If your kitchen is not set up well, it’s like trying to fight a battle with stone age weapons, or run a sprint in high heels.

It’s time to set your kitchen up for success.

Whether you’re starting a new diet that requires more food prep, or have a new interest outside the kitchen and want to finish meal prep faster, you need to apply these 10 secrets to a highly efficient kitchen.

1. If You Don’t Use It, Lose It.

Everyone thinks a bigger kitchen would solve their kitchen problems, but I promise the solution is right under your nose: ditch the clutter. January is the best time of year to do this because you’ve just gone through the kitchen marathon called “The Holidays”. If you didn’t use that tool/bowl/pot/gadget in the last two months chances are, you probably won’t. Go through your cupboards and drawers and grab everything that hasn’t been used lately and throw it in a box. If you can’t quite part yet, throw the box in your attic or garage to hibernate. If you don’t pull anything out of that box in a few more months, you can be sure it’s safe to pass it along. And what do you know–your drawers and cupboards just got bigger and easier to find things in!

2. Clear Counters

Is lack of counter space the problem? Don’t worry, we have got a fix for that, too. Here’s my rule for counter-tops: Only what is used daily gets to live on the counter. What’s on my counters:

toaster oven

high power blender

dish drain

utensil crocks

kitchen aid

dish soap

Everything else goes into the cupboards or pantry. (If you don’t have room to put it away, go back to #1!) Now you actually have space to cook, and your kitchen welcomes you instead of scares you away!

3. Use Workstations

Those with OCD tendancies are gonna squirm about this one, but hang with me. You will love how this feels in the end.

Think of the 3 most common things you prep in your kitchen. Now think of the ingredients and tools you use for those dishes. Chances are you have to go to 3-4 different spots in your kitchen to fetch the ingredients for just one dish: pantry for the flour, cupboard for the spices, drawer for the measuring spoons, another cupboard for the bowl–all before you can even begin baking.

What if the flour and mixing bowls were in the same cupboard, and the measuring spoons and spices in the same drawer right below? Work Stations are the secret to cooking fast.

Dinner Zone: I keep salt, pepper, and all the spices I use on a weekly basis in the little cupboard beside my stove vent. Cornstarch and honey also make it into this little spot, though they don’t seem to ‘match’. They belong because of how frequently I use them when I’m cooking stove top.

Drink Zone: My favorite refreshing drink uses 4 ingredients that would typically be found in 4 different corners of my kitchen. I put them all in the cupboard right next to my water filter so I could make filling my glass water bottle super fast before I rush out the door to run errands (I’m always running late!).

Lunch Packing Zone: What if water bottles, lunch containers, sandwich bags and any shelf-stable lunch supplies were kept in the same cupboard or deep drawer?

Racing around like a pinball when you’re in a hurry to throw something together is not fun. Storing commonly-used-together items in the same place makes your kitchen work for you.

4. Everyone Knows Where Everything Goes

Are you the only one in your house that can put away or find things in your kitchen? Then you have a problem. Delegation is key to success in any venture. Have your kids help you put away groceries, and consider labeling shelves and drawers so your kids, spouse or baby sitter can lend a hand with bringing order. I labeled my pantry shelves last year and now any of my kids who can read can put away all the pantry stuff! Don’t make your kitchen a mystery. This is the label maker I used.

5. Unbox All the Things

I started doing this last year and it has been one of the most delightful tweaks to my kitchen ever. When we get home from Aldi and the kids are putting away the groceries (see #3!) I instruct them to take things out of boxes and packages as they put it away. So, butter quarters come out of the box and go straight into their cubby in the fridge loose. Onions get taken out of the bag before they are put in the onion drawer. Cheese sticks get taken out of the bag and dumped into the fridge drawer loose. Such a little thing, but it makes it so handy when you’re in the middle of cooking or racing out the door and you can grab what you need with one hand!

6. Apply the One-Hand-Grab to tool storage

Are you starting to see a pattern? I like grabbing things with one hand. It’s one of the secrets to cooking faster! You should have a tool caddy with your most commonly used cooking utensils right in your stove top cooking station. Remember, only the tools you use daily go in this caddy or it gets too cluttered! Spatulas, stirring spoons, whisks. Metallic knife storage is clean and easy and saves space. And paper towels! Oh my. I hate a paper towel holder that requires two hands! I mean, when I need a paper towel, it’s usually because I have a mess on my hands! Make them easy to grab with an under the counter mount dispenser. I like this one because you only need one hand to refill it, too!

7. Only Use One Cleaner

Do you have a huge collection of specialty cleaners under your sink? No wonder you have no storage room! Keep it simple by using an all-purpose cleaner so you just have one bottle instead of 6. I use Thieves Spray because, unlike chemical cleaners, it’s food safe. I can spray down my counters with it, and then cook on the same surface and don’t have to worry about chemical residue in my food. Plus, it smells great and is safe for my kids to use (Remember delegation!).

One bottle of Thieves Household Cleaner Concentrate has lasted me two years! I just put a few cap-fulls into a spray bottle and add water to fill. Cleans every room of my house!

8. Sort your Spices

Who loves to spend 10 minutes in the middle of cooking dinner looking for that one, tiny spice jar that you just saw last week but now you can’t find anywhere? Here’s the secret to spice jar sanity and seasoning dinner fast: Store your spices in two places. The common ones you use every week should go in a cupboard near your stove (remember rule #3?). For me, that’s garlic, basil, oregano, and my taco, ranch, and seasoned salt mixes (recipes here). There’s no reason to dig through uncommon spices to get to your garlic every time you want it. Then your lesser used spices can go in another cupboard or drawer, without clogging up prime real estate.

9. Make a Plan and Work the Plan

Without a plan for what you’re gonna cook next, your kitchen will intimidate you and you will avoid it…and end up with nothing good or healthy for dinner (again). If menu planning is your nemesis, try my meal planning hack that simplifies the process down to a few minutes and guarantees success.

10. Wear an Apron

You shouldn’t be flinching or balking in the kitchen. Put your ‘armor’ on. Free yourself to cook fast and not worry about splatters or stains with a good, cover all apron. I made my favorite one in about two hours with this pattern from my friend and favorite online seamstress, Leslie. But you can find super cute, functional styles here, too.

My goal is to see you thriving in your kitchen–getting in, making good food for your family, and getting out and living your life outside the kitchen. You can do that if you set your kitchen up for efficiency with these tips!

What’s something you always or never do in the kitchen that’s a secret to sanity the rest of us should know about? Share it in the comments!

This post contains affiliate links to help you quickly find the tools you need!

But homemade, nutrient-dense meals are not just going to show up on the dinner table all by themselves. Especially during this busy season.

Actually, I should say I used to hate menu planning. I was hating it because I was making this detailed plan that, invariably, I’d deviate from, and despite dinner being served on time, I’d still feel like a failure.

I was believing the lie that the more detailed a plan I made, the more chance I had for success. But success is more often found in simple systems that are easy to put on repeat.

What I needed was a flexible plan that took minutes to make and worked no matter what the week threw at me.

That’s when I developed the:

Flexible Menu System

This system takes less than 10 minutes once a week and gives me peace of mind and space to think about other things than food (glory!). It’s just 3 1/2 steps and will surprise you with how painless it is.

1. Jot down at least three dinners that sound appetizing in the next week.

I do this on a scrap of envelope or cardboard if I can’t find a notebook. If this feels like menu planning, trick yourself and call it a Wish List. I try to choose meals that are appropriate to the season, but sometimes I just don’t feel like it. So there.

You know, those meals you find yourself making every week because no one complains about seeing them again and again? (Ours weekly favorites are homemade pizza, anything wrapped in a tortilla, and anything grilled).

3. Jot down 3 breakfast ideas.

That’s all you’ll need because you’re gonna eat each of them twice, and the 7th day? We’re gonna be spontaneous (Yehaw!!!)

But if you usually eat lunch at home–you get to skip this step! Lunches will be leftovers, mkay?

OK, that’s it. You just made a week’s meal plan. In less than 10 minutes. And you still have brains cells left. You gotta love it.

What’s that? That doesn’t look like much of a plan? Ahh, you see it’s enough–the rest is in the execution…

How to Execute your Flexible Menu System

Once a Week:

Think through each meal and jot down the ingredients you need to buy in order to create that meal. If you have a robust pantry and freezer, you may only need an item or two to complete each meal. If you haven’t shopped in a while, well then, it’s a good thing you’re making this list, right?

Go shopping and buy the stuff you need for the meals you’re in the mood for. Add or replace items in your cart if you see a good sale. The key is to be let your list guide but not bind you!

Bring Food Home. (Elementary, I know.) If you bought fresh meat, check the expiration date and toss it in the freezer if you don’t think you’ll be in the mood for it before the expiration date.

Daily:

OK, now comes the most important part of being a free-spirited meal planner: for just 6 minutes each day, you will have to think ahead. Just 6 min. and then we can go back to being spontaneous as larks, OK? And this 6 min. is divided in two parts, so I know we can do it.

First 3 Minutes: As you’re making breakfast each morning, look at your day and make an educated guess how much time you’ll have to prep dinner, and what meal from your Wish List fits the day’s mood and meal requirements. Once you’ve decided, do one small thing to help prepare for that meal, like pulling meat out of the fridge, making salad dressing, or starting some dough to soak or rise. I’ve found that if I think about dinner just a little bit in advance and do just a teensy bit of advance preparation, the task of getting it on the table is much more natural and less stressful. It sometimes even feels fun. You’ve been warned.

Second 3 minutes: As you’re cleaning up dinner, decide what you feel like for breakfast the next morning. Again, do one small thing to facilitate that meal before you leave the kitchen–setting pantry ingredients out, soaking grains, or even just setting the table. When you wake the next morning the hardest part of breakfast (trying to decide what to make while you’re still asleep) will be past you. It’s a feeling nearly as good as that first sip of coffee (or so I imagine, as non-coffee drinker).

If you’ll take 10 min. a week to quickly brainstorm a few meal ideas, shop with a list, and incorporate just 6 minutes of forethought into each day, you will be setting yourself up for success in feeding your family well, and nobody got carpal tunnel from endless list making. Glory.

Do you think this flexible plan would work for you? Give it a try by listing 3 dinner ideas real fast in the comments. You’ll inspire my next menu planning session (thanks!), and maybe find something to add to your Wish List this week!

This post is an excerpt from my book Your Real Food Journey. If you like this simple system for streamlining your kitchen, you’ll love the rest of the book! Grab yours on Kindle or in full color paperback (qualifies for Amazon Prime free shipping!). Makes great Christmas gifts, too. 😉